Revolut Tacks on Medical Travel Insurance as Established Fintechs Continue to Add Services

Revolut, a London-based digital-only bank, is introducing another and decidedly distinct product to its growing stable of financial service offerings.

On Wednesday, the fintech launched medical and dental travel insurance coverage for its customers. What makes this product unique is its geolocation technology—whenever the geolocation services in your phone pick up that you’ve departed from your country of origin, your travel insurance coverage will automatically kick in.

That makes activating medical and dental travel insurance easier than picking up the phone to let your bank know you’ll be out of your normal area of service so they don’t lock up your credit or debit card on suspected fraud.

According to the fintech’s blog, the Pay-per-Day Travel Insurance coverage runs customers between £1 and €1 dollars a day, depending on the coverage you opt into, and you’ll only “pay for the days that you actually go away.”

The policy does come with a cap on the number of days abroad covered, but customers who spend more than the average amount of time abroad can purchase a yearly policy at a fixed rate of £30. Consumers can also add family and friends to their policy or winter sports coverage.

Revolut won’t be underwriting these insurance policies itself, though. Revolut is leveraging itself as something of a financial services marketplace, allowing, in this case, insurer Thomas Cook Group to underwrite these travel insurance policies for its customers.

What launched initially as a prepaid MasterCard with a foreign currency exchange feature, Revolut now enables customers to hold, transfer, and exchange money in USD, 24 foreign currencies and, as of recently, cryptocurrencies. Consumers can also receive money to their own International Bank Account Number and access credit on the platform.

Cadence is a fintech reporter and writer at Fintech Unltd, where she covers the changing landscape of financial technologies. Previously, Cadence interned at Psychology Today, Business Insider and the Wisconsin State Journal. Cadence is interested in how science and technology intersect with power and culture and is curious about the world we are creating for tomorrow, consciously or not. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2017 with degrees in Journalism and Chinese. Send tips and story ideas to Cadence at [email protected] You can also follow her on Twitter @cadencebambenek.